Plavlina Nanou (Torrwash)

Pavlina Nanou has a chemical engineering background and obtained her PhD at the University of Twente in 2013. She has 20 years of research experience on thermo-chemical conversion technologies of biomass to fuels. The past eight years she has been responsible for scaling up the patented TORWASH technology from lab scale to a first demonstration plant, which aims at converting waste streams into valuable feedstocks for the bio-based industry. As co-founder and COO of TORWASH BV, a TNO spin-off company founded in January 2020, Pavlina is leading the demonstration project where successful trials were completed in 2024 with a 1 ton/h plant, realising over 2,000 operational hours on processing sewage sludge. For her work she received the Prins Friso Engineering Award in 2024 by the Royal Netherlands Society of Engineers (KIVI).

Lex Scheepers (RIFT)

Co-Founder & Chief Technology Officer, Renewable Iron Fuel Technology (RIFT)

Lex Scheepers joins Breakthrough Energy's Innovator Fellows program from Renewable Iron Fuel Technology (RIFT) in North Brabant, Netherlands. An expert in energy technology, both traditional and renewable, Lex combines a passion for technology with a desire to contribute to a clean and sustainable future. At RIFT, Lex and his colleagues are leveraging hydrogen and the rusting properties of iron to produce carbon-neutral energy for heat-intensive industries.

Rusting, or combustion, of iron powder yields zero-carbon heat that can be turned into hot water or steam and fed to energy-intensive industries. The resulting iron oxide powder can be easily stored and transported, then turned back into iron powder through a chemical reaction with hydrogen and reused. Through the BE Fellows program, RIFT aims to advance their Boiler and Production Systems to a fully functional prototype to demonstrate viability of a commercial pilot plant.

Lex earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering and a Master of Science in Mechanical Engineering with a specialization in Energy Technology from Eindhoven University of Technology.

Prof Hans Kuipers

Hans Kuipers leads the research group Multiscale Modelling of Multiphase Flows. Using highly advanced computer simulations, Kuipers develops accurate models for new chemical reactors in the process industry, allowing the large-scale production of synthetic fuels, fertiliser, laundry soap, polymers and numerous other products.

Over the years the Kuipers group has made seminal contributions to the fundamentals of chemical reaction engineering. 

Hans Kuipers studied Chemical Engineering at the University of Twente (UT, Enschede, The Netherlands) where he obtained his MSc in 1985. In the same year he started his PhD research on detailed microbalance modelling of gas-fluidized beds under supervision at the UT Reaction Engineering group of Prof. Wim van Swaaij. In 1990 he received his PhD degree and was appointed in the same year as Assistant Professor in the Reaction Engineering group. In 1994 he became Associate Professor and in 1999 he was appointed Full Professor in Fundamentals of Chemical Reaction Engineering at the University of Twente. From 2006 – 2010, he was the Scientific Director at the Institute of Mechanics Processes and Control Twente (IMPACT). In 2010, he moved to Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e) as Full Professor in Multiscale Modelling of Multiphase Flows. Since 2015 he is a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences since. He has received an Advanced ERC grant in 2009, NWO CW TOP grants in 2005 and 2010 and he is co-recipient of an 31,9 million euro NWO gravitation grant for the "Netherlands Center for Multiscale Catalytic Energy Conversion" (2013).

Valeria Garbin

Valeria Garbin is Professor of Flow and Dynamics of Soft Matter at Delft University of Technology, and head of the section Transport Phenomena. Her research focuses on microscale transport phenomena, soft and biological materials, colloid and interface science; with the overarching goal to help develop innovative solutions for sustainable processes and products. Valeria did her MSc in Physics (2003) at the University of Padova and her PhD (2007) at the University of Trieste in Italy. She was a Rubicon fellow in the Physics of Fluids group at the University of Twente (2007-2009), and a postdoc at the University of Pennsylvania (2009-2012), before starting her research group at Imperial College London in 2012. She joined the Department of Chemical Engineering at TU Delft in 2019. Valeria has been awarded an ERC Starting Grant (2015), and ERC Proof of Concept Grant (2022) and an NWO Vici grant (2022), was the 2018 recipient of the McBain medal (RSC/SCI), and the 2020 recipient of the Soft Matter Lectureship (RSC).

Regina Palkovitz

Regina Palkovits is Full Professor for Heterogeneous Catalysis & Chemical Technology at RWTH Aachen University. She graduated in Chemical Engineering from Technical University Dortmund in 2003 and carried out her PhD under supervision of Prof. Ferdi Schüth at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung until 2006. Afterwards, she joined the group of Prof. Bert Weckhuysen at Utrecht University as postdoctoral fellow. In 2008, she returned as a group leader to the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung and since 2010 she is Professor at RWTH Aachen University. Her research focusses on the design of catalysts and processes for the efficient valorisation of renewable resources. Professor Palkovits currently heads the Sustainable Chemistry Division of GDCh. She received numerous awards, including the 2019 EFCATS Young Researcher Award, the 2016 DECHEMA Award, and the Innovation Prize of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia in the Young Researchers category. She is a Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion and as of 2020, a member of the North Rhine-Westphalian Academy of Sciences, Humanities and the Arts.